Wouldn't that be a shame?! What will become of us, I wonder, if an inept automaker, a beer brewer and a foreign oil company be prevented from influencing our elections.

Van Hollen [U.S. Representative from Maryland, Democrat] said his legislative team is "still reviewing the foreign influence issue."

But he added that it was important to prevent foreign influence on domestic politics. "We must ultimately ensure that Americans decide our elections, not foreign special interests," he said.

Absolutely! It will be much better if our elections are decided by domestic special interests.

And on that note I should refer you to another news item—"U.S. Chamber of Commerce grows into a political force"—in which we learn that the Chamber has established a "grassroots" movement, Friends of the U.S. Chamber, said to embody some 6 million individuals.

The chamber's expansion into grass-roots organizing -- coupled with a large and growing fundraising apparatus that got a lift from Supreme Court rulings -- is part of a trend in which the traditional parties are losing ground to well-financed and increasingly assertive outside groups. The chamber is certainly better positioned than ever to be a major force on the issues and elections it focuses on each year, analysts think.....

What makes the initiative possible is a swelling tide of money. The chamber spent more than $144 million on lobbying and grass-roots organizing last year, a 60% increase over 2008, and well beyond the spending of individual labor unions or the Democratic or Republican national committees.